This month’s IWSG post is about growth and change. Fitting for the spring season we’re all now entrenched in, if you think about it. April showers bring May flowers is the old saying, and that generally means that the work you put in today, yields results tomorrow. But how do you know that the results you get will be the ones you want?

I’m talking today about my own plans, but please, ask yourself these questions as well, and see if they ring true.

Do I have a goal?

Is this goal something I really want to work towards?

Is this goal something that will make me happy?

Do the steps I need to take line up with what I am capable of?

Should I go past my capabilities, even if I don’t know what the result will be?

If I fail, what is the worst that can happen?

What is my next step?

These are questions that I ponder on a daily basis. Questions that make it difficult to move forward at times. As you well know by now, I suffer from untreated anxiety and depression, and although I’ve been on anti-anxiety/anti-depressive meds before, I cannot afford them right now. This means dealing with my own issues without the aid of medication that turns my brain from my enemy into my friend.

So, these questions can be double sided. Negative answers can pop up and wreak havoc. In this case, however I’m going to try to answer them here for you, in the most positive light I can.

Yes, I have a goal. Several. The two most important are to complete my degree, and to get published.

Yes, the goals are worth working towards. Not only would being a published author raise my self-esteem, it would also make it easier to find work. ‘Published Author’ looks impressive on a resume, after all. And education is it’s own reward.

Do these goals make me happy? Somewhat. I have no doubt that being published will make me happy. And completing a degree will definately make me feel accomplished.

The question here becomes difficult. Am I capable of the steps necessary? Of attending classes? Getting good grades? All while writing, editing and publishing a book? Not to mention all of the other goals I have that aren’t listed here? …I won’t know until I try. But I believe I am. I believe I can do these things, because others believe I can. My writing mentor, Chris Votey, tells me that I can accomplish this. That I can be an author. My best friend tells me that I am worth an education. That I can do it.

Should I overextend myself? What if I’m not capable of acheiving these goals? Well, as my best friend reminded me today, the steps along the way are lessons, that I can then apply to new goals. There’s no need to worry so much over failure, becuase success isn’t the goal. The journey is. So I CAN overextend myself. I’ll just have to have nets waiting for when I fall.

If I fail to get my degree, I’ll have to continue working in retail, or worse, not work at all and eat up my best friend’s resources. If I fail to be published, I will have wasted all the time writing these stories, getting them out of my head and onto paper. If I fail, I will be where I am now, instead of where I want to be. That… doesn’t sound so bad to me.

My next steps are simple. Last week, I tested to see if I need remedial classes. This week I wait for them to tell me if my verification has come through. Everyday, I write. More and more, and then edit, carefully. Those are my next steps.

When I ask these seven questions, I don’t feel nearly as bad about where I am, or what to do next. Growth is just looking for a way to succeed. Nothing more. Change is the willingness to grow, and the chance. So what are you growing this april? What do your seven answers look like? Did these questions help you in any way? Let me know!

Like this:

Memory is a fickle thing, inherently wrong, yet personal in the greatest of ways. All of our memories are biased, based upon information our mind stores and corrupts. Stories we tell ourselves become memories, despite never happening. Things that happened turn out a different way when we think back on them.

Most personal to us all, and most telling of whom we will become, is our very first memory. The first bit of light our mind stores away for us in the world. These memories hide from us, little snippets of time. And then, like magic, a scent, or a sound, the touch of a familiar fabric, or the hum of a certain frequency reminds us, and it comes crashing back like nothing was ever missing at all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The prickly poking of hay. The scent of his mother, soft and creamy like milk just warmed up, and the sound of his father’s quiet voice. Later, Dirk would learn that the conversation was their first discussion about whether they should go back home to Thosfig, back to their tribe. His nose itched, and he rubbed his little fingers against it to make it go away.Noticing how sharp his little fingernails were, he curled them into his palms. Crickets chirped somewhere, and he could hear crackling, like fire. His eyes felt heavy, and he didn’t want to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Pain. Yumil remembered pain first. A too-tight grip of an adult hand around a small wrist. The red of lines cut into child-soft skin by fingernails dyed with pigment from berries. Yumil remembers looking up at her, her tawny hair shining in the sunlight. She is beautiful, and frightful. She calls him a bad boy,voice hissing. Yumil feels his stomach twist and clench, fear climbing inside. She is angry, and to Yumil it’s as if she has always been angry and will always be angry. He finds anger burning inside himself to match, hot and terrifyingly close to tears.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She can’t remember the words anymore, but Eamon remembers the soft feeling of her mother’s chest. Her cheek fits against it perfectly. She remembers the hard push of her sister’s knee against her own leg, and the laugh in her mother’s voice. She recalls the lines of her sister’s hand and how it felt to rub her thumb along them until Lette shrieked with laughter, like it had tickled her. Eamon remembers how warm she felt, wrapped up in the two of them. A mix of flowers and cool water always brings this memory to her mind, and she smiles.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Grass tickling her nose, and a small round bug crawling along between the blades. Red like string scattering across her vision, as she was lifted from the earth. Her hand still reaching out for the little black bug, bigger hands tight against her ribs They squeezed a little painfully, but only enough to make her whine in the back of her throat. A murmur of her name, and Lette looks up. Her father’s green eyes smile down at her like the water of a murky lake. She smiles back, and giggles. His hand, scratchy with callouses, brushes back her hair.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Blurs moving past him, dark things swimming around the edges of his vision. Espin remembers crying, crying so loud and so long that he was sure no one heard him. He remembers unpleasant smells, something he later knows is the smell of sickness and waste. He remembers the crying making it worse, stopping his nose and how panicked he felt. A cool hand on his forehead was all that kept him awake, and he cried, and cried. Sleep would be kinder. His stomach lurched, and he felt hotness sear his throat and splash out his lips. Nothing eases his pain.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Her big brother’s back, warm and strong. Anelace was tied to it, she could feel the soft cloth against the back of her neck, feel the bounce of his step as he walked. He talked to her, telling her stories, and she burbled back to him. Her fingers found his coarse woven dreads, tugging for attention. She remembers how he smelt like sunshine and camels. He was so big, and strong, he carried her like she was smaller than an ant, and it made her feel small and she thought he must be the most powerful thing in the world.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

She was always angry. So angry. His mother was angry at him, yelling and screaming, and Jorgan hated yelling. He wanted to hide and forget. It made him cry, which made her so much angrier. She called him hurtful things he can’t remember later, things that might be true. Her palm struck his cheek, and his world went spinning. Pain blossomed in his jaw, his teeth rattling, as he toppled over. His cries came louder. The snap of a belt made his chest squeeze, and fear silenced him. His father’s footsteps, shaky and unstable, curled him into a tight ball.